Disney Accused of
Illegally Tracking Children Via Apps in New Lawsuit

A San Francisco mom says her child was illegally tracked while using the
Disney Princess Palace Pets app.

Amanda Rushing, on behalf of her child referred to as "L.L.," is suing
The Walt Disney Company, Disney Electronic Content and others in a
proposed class action filed Thursday in California federal court.

Rushing claims an advertising-specific software development kit is
surreptitiously embedded in the code for the app, and that's how Disney
is collecting personal information and tracking online behavior.

"App developers and their SDK-providing partners can track children’s
behavior while they play online games with their mobile devices by
obtaining critical pieces of data from the mobile devices,
including 'persistent identifiers,' typically a unique number linked to
a specific mobile device," writes attorney Michael Sobol in the
complaint. "These persistent identifiers allow SDK providers to
detect a child’s activity across multiple apps and platforms on the
internet, and across different devices, effectively providing a full
chronology of the child’s actions across devices and apps. This
information is then sold to various third-parties who sell targeted
online advertising."

Sobol argues this is exactly the kind of practice the Children's Online
Privacy Protection Act was enacted to prevent. Under COPPA, app
developers and any third-parties working with them can't legally collect
personal information about children who are under the age of 13 without
verifiable consent from their parents.

"Disney has failed to safeguard children’s personal information and
ensure that third-parties’ collection of data from children
is lawful," writes Sobol.

According to the suit, a Disney subsidiary, Playdom Inc., paid the
largest civil penalty to date ($3 million) for violating COPPA in 2011.

Rushing says L.L. was tracked while using the princess pets app, but the
suit claims dozens of other games also track their users, including Club
Penguin Island, Star Wars: Puzzle Droids, Frozen Free Fall and Disney
Emoji Blitz. (Read the full list on pages 9 and 10 of the complaint,
which is posted below.)

Rushing is seeking class certification with a class defined as: "all
persons residing in the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona,
Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii,
Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine,
Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and West
Virginia who are younger than the age of 13, or were younger than
the age of 13 when they played the Game Tracking Apps, and their
parents and/or legal guardians, from whom Defendants collected,
used, or disclosed personal information without verifiable parental
consent."

She's also seeking certification of a sub-class of California residents
who could also have claims for violation of the state's right to
privacy.

Disney has not yet replied to a request for comment on the complaint.

America's Most
Powerful Companies Are Using Creepy Artificial Intelligence to Alter
Your Behavior. From Starbucks to IBM, artificial intelligence is hot.

From Starbucks ( SBUX) to
IBM ( IBM) , the
use of artificial intelligence by big companies to alter your behavior
is becoming a major thing. The most recent example is
coffee giant Starbucks, as TheStreet recently reported. If you
always have a caramel macchiato on Mondays, but Tuesdays call for the
straight stuff, a double espresso, then Starbucks is ready to know
every nuance of your coffee habit. There will be no coffee secrets
between you, if you're a Rewards member, and Starbucks.

This fall as Starbucks rolls out more of its new cloud-based Digital
Flywheel program, backed by artificial intelligence (AI), the chain's
regulars will find their every java wish ready to be fulfilled and, the
food and drink items you haven't yet thought about presented to you as
what you're most likely to want next.

So targeted is the technology behind this program that, if the weather
is sunny, you'll get a different suggestion than if the day is rainy. Or
expect suggestions to vary on the weekend or a holiday, as opposed to a
regular workday. If it's your birthday, Starbucks will offer a
personalized birthday selection. If you
patronize a Starbucks other than you're regular haunt, Starbucks will
know that too.

Like it or not, what Starbucks has developed represents a smart melding
of technology into e-commerce tools that will pay off long term for the
company and drive sales, Brian Solis, a principal analyst and futurist
at Altimeter, told TheStreet in an interview.

"Starbucks is one of the best companies in the world that connects
brand, user and consumer experience between digital mobile and the real
world," said Solis. " They are still pushing forward, rolling out their
Digital Flywheel strategy to be more dynamic to further integrate
digital and real world."

Facebook makes money by trapping people in a 'cycle of
failure' that makes them keep using it, research suggests

“Facebook is criminally abusive to society” say
experts

Scientists might have found why you finally keep looking at your
Facebook feed.

And it's all because – despite how it might feel – going on there makes
you feel good, according to the new research.

Even briefly looking at something related to Facebook, like its logo or
the news feed, can be enough to give people great pleasure. A desire to
repeat that pleasure keeps people logging on they found, and triggers
cravings when people aren't logged on.

Then, when people decide they want to leave Facebook, they miss out on
that pleasure. They'll then start feeling guilty, go on Facebook to
cheer themselves up again – and feel bad all over again.

Researchers said that behaviour was a "cycle of self-regulatory failure"
that keeps people logging on,

And the guilt over failing to actually cut out social media is damaging
to the psyche, according to Michigan State University's Allison Eden,
who conducted the study.

People might be best looking to force themselves to remove Facebook from
their life entirely, the researchers said. That might include removing
the Facebook app from your phone's home screen, they suggested.

"Media, including social media, is one of the most commonly failed goals
to regulate," Eden said. "People try to regulate themselves and they
really have difficulty with it."

The researchers conducted two studies, looking at people who use
Facebook a lot and people who use it less.

in the first study, people were asked to look either at something
related to Facebook – like its logo – or something else entirely, and
then at a Chinese symbol. They were then told to say whether the symbol
was pleasant or unpleasant.

Heavy Facebook users who had looked at an image related to the site were
far more likely to say that the Chinese symbol was pleasant.

"People are learning this reward feeling when they get to Facebook," she
said. "What we show with this study is that even with something as
simple as the Facebook logo, seeing the Facebook wall of a friend or
seeing anything associated with Facebook, is enough to bring that
positive association back."

In the second study, people were asked to measure their cravings for
Facebook. They found that people often gave into the temptation to use
Facebook and then fell into the cycle of failure that can damage their
psyche.